Sift

Here nor there

I can’t tell you what it really is

I can only tell you what it feels like.

On Wednesday it will be 365 days that we’ve lived in Montreal. It’s hard to believe that a year ago we were doing normal things like….functioning….when we were making one of the biggest decisions we’ve ever made.

When I think about it too hard, when I thought about home at all too much, I can’t breathe properly, I feel confused. I remember feeling like I could never call Montreal home, and for a long time I refused. But I like it here. Vancouver has it’s own complications. Our friends and family and familiarity are there. But our jobs are here, and I LOVE my job. 

It’s not all black and white anymore. It’s not that easy. Even if magically everything worked out so we could move home next week, I honestly don’t know if I would. I’m not really happy here, but I don’t think moving home is going to fix anything for me.

And that’s scary. Feeling like no matter where I am, I still have this uneasiness. I’m going home to visit this summer and it feels terrifying. I know it will be unbelievably awesome and that there will be an undercurrent of panic and dread and afterwards I will fall apart. I don’t know how to prepare myself for the undoing of myself, I don’t know how to prevent it. The time limit and the pressure to experience everything that makes me happy at home kind of takes away from the in the moment enjoyment. I need to figure out some damage control methods. 

Wednesday and Thursday will be hard. But a friend is coming to visit and the distraction will help. We will celebrate, because surely this shit gets easier after a year, right?

Posted on: 28th May 2012 - 0 notesReblog

Happiness < 3

Posted on: 21st May 2012 - 0 notesReblog

Today at work I got a raise. I also made my boss incredibly happy. I had nachos and wine for dinner. Exchanged texts with a good friend. My Mom is coming tomorrow to visit for 5 days. Today was a great day.

I should be happy.

I’m not. I feel like I’m getting sick. I feel uncomfortable and anxious. I’m unhappy. What the hell is wrong with me? Why can’t I just be easy?

Posted on: 10th May 2012 - 0 notesReblog

Whoever invented the phrase “Easy come easy go” was clearly a retard.

Posted on: 10th May 2012 - 0 notesReblog

My blog looks sexy!

I’ve wanted a layout that looked like this since I started using Tumblr. It was the one thing I really missed from livejournal, I loved how customizable everything was. Back in the day when I was actually able to edit html and knew a good amount of hex codes. So I’m pretty damn pleased with the way it looks now.

The background is a background I found on wallbase, it says NIN in the corner and I’ve loved it to death ever since I found it.

And yes, those are my feet in the header background. And my wedding dress. At English Bay, in Vancouver BC, taken by my best friend SB. I was trashing my dress. Because I’m rad like that sometimes.

Posted on: 8th May 2012 - 0 notesReblog

Red to Gray

Last week when I was at work I was talking to a girl I work with. She’s gorgeous, brilliant, and does everything at work perfectly. She’s also a lovely person to be around. We were prepping meat and talking. She was telling me she’s going away in the fall to visit a family member that owns a hospital. She wants to be a Doctor and is going to take the trip before she starts University. 

She started telling me about how she wants to be something when she grows up. How she doesn’t want to work at a burger place for her whole life and be nothing. How her family has taught her values such as being important, working hard, having a career. She insinuated working there would soon become an embarrassment to her family if she didn’t go back to school.

To me this experience felt like having someone stand in front of me and voice all of my negative thoughts to my face. They way she hurt me was unintentional but nonetheless, her words stung. Since then, at random times when my mind is quiet I can hear her saying those things. It’s uncomfortable to hear someone else’s voice in your head voicing all the negative shit you secretly tell yourself. 

If I hadn’t had Avery, I don’t know if I would have bothered finishing school. Highschool was an extremely difficult time for me. But because of her, I didn’t bother with any other education after Grade 12. It’s definitely not her fault, she was the easy excuse. I didn’t learn to drive, I didn’t seriously consider college/university, I didn’t do a lot of things that most people do before becoming an adult. Mainly because I didn’t think I could, didn’t consider myself smart enough, brave enough, confident enough. I told myself I couldn’t because I was busy parenting, working to pay for everything a kid involves, too busy trying to keep everything together to worry about stuff like that. It didn’t bother me then.

But I’ve convinced myself I can’t do a lot of things. Told myself, I’m not smart enough or good enough. That I can’t do anything other than work at a burger place. Part of me feels indignant about that, because my job is way harder than it seems. But in the big scheme of things, it really is just making burgers. I’m not contributing to society in any great way. A lot of people consider that to be nothing, and it’s something I think to myself too. 

That same afternoon my boss called me and told me that I’m going to be the next manager if I can learn French and open up my availability. I experienced a split second of excitement/pride and have had a difficult time since. Part of me feels like I’m not good enough, strong enough, smart enough, you get the idea, to be a manager of any sort. And another part of me thinks about how it doesn’t even matter. Being a manager of a burger place isn’t something you should be proud of. Nobody in society congratulates you on that. Nobody encourages their kid to manage a fast food place when they grow up. 

And part of me thinks, this is what I have. This is what I can do in a city where I don’t speak the first language. I’ve worked hard at this and take pride in doing the job that I have to the best of my ability. I wish I only cared about how I feel, and could feel pride in myself. But the truth is, I don’t get excited for payday. I deposit my checks every other week and berate myself for making such a shitty contribution to my family. I think terrible negative thoughts about my part time job and feel ashamed that I might never have a “real career”. 

It’s a shitty feeling. Because I really do love my job. More than any other job I’ve had. I hated myself so much for accepting this first job in the fast food industry out of desperation. But I’ve grown to love it. When I’m at work I’m happy and energetic and I love nearly everything about it. I embrace my ‘Work OCD’ and put in all my effort whenever I can. I hope that someday my love for my job squashes all my negative thoughts. 

When I tell P my negative thoughts and insecurities he holds my face so I can’t avoid eye contact and tells me about how every day I make people happy by feeding them tasty food, and he explains to me how my pay cheques make our finances so much easier, and he tells me all the things I need to hear. I need to learn how to tell myself that stuff, and believe it. 

Posted on: 7th May 2012 - 0 notesReblog

Grow: Part 2

This is the place I referred to in my post from the weekend. This picture is also the very first thing I posted on this blog, which was on April 23rd 2010.

Last year I planted everything and then found out we were moving here. I gave my whole garden away.

Posted on: 7th May 2012 - 0 notesReblog

My best friend is running a marathon today. Right now in fact.

I can’t be there cheering him with a bunch of our friends like last year, but I’m thinking about how awesome he is.

Woohoo SB!

Posted on: 6th May 2012 - 0 notesReblog

Grow

Sitting on my deck, soaking in the afternoon sun. This is the place I feel most at home. It’s easy to close my eyes and imagine my old deck. The huge back yard in front on me, the squeak of the trampoline. The white stucco wall behind me and brown door trim, my little potted garden, reclining in my chair listening to the kitchen behind me. I miss that little haven.

I can’t conjure up my best friend walking into my house, finding me outside and waking me up, bearing dinner and a movie. But I can make a happy space for myself.

Next weekend my Mon visits. I’m hoping we can create a little garden together. Maybe some sweet peas or sunflowers. Definitely a little herb garden. I can recreate my little haven here, east coast style.

Posted on: 6th May 2012 - 0 notesReblog

Adaptation

Tonight the woman at the Dep said to me “So you’re adapted now”. Meaning to Montreal, to living here. How do you know if you’ve adapted? You have id? You have a job? You have friends? You call all corner stores Dep’s? You can give someone else directions? You stop feeling homesick? You refer to your house as home? Things stop feeling foreign? You find familiarity more often?

I have no idea. There is no definite way, I think it’s just a feeling. I don’t agree that I have adapted, but I am definitely adapting. It’s a long process. Who knows how long it will take. Sometimes it all seems easier, and other times it seems like it will never happen.

But change happens slowly whether you like it or not.

Posted on: 2nd May 2012 - 0 notesReblog

You know that stupid phrase “I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing WITH you!”. I always thought that was bullshit.

I like to tell people “I’m laughing AT you. You’re ridiculous”.

Say what you mean, mean what you say, and all that - right?

Posted on: 2nd May 2012 - 0 notesReblog

Coconut AND Chocolate, Bitches!

I made that.

Fuckin delicious. 

Posted on: 2nd May 2012 - 0 notesReblog

Just call me Jessie Betty Crocker Martha

That has a lovely ring to it, doesn’t it?

My parents never taught me how to cook. My Dad raised me making the exact same 7 pretty bad meals, they never changed. My Mom was a decent cook but she never did, the year I lived with her we lived off of Chunky Soup and Kraft Dinner.

Since living together P and I have figured out spaghetti, stir fry, porck chops and mushroom soup sauce, that kind of stuff. Nothing complicated, and nothing ever from a recipe.

For Christmas in 2011 my best friend SB got me a subscription to Martha’s FOOD magazine. Which is pretty awesome. I didn’t really use it much because I didn’t have the confidence to make anything, but there was stuff that interested me.

Then we moved to Montreal. I can’t tell you what changed, but the very first week we were here I made P orange chicken for his birthday. I didn’t fail, everyone liked it. Then when we moved into this house I planted myself a little herb garden and started experimenting with stuff I was cooking. It started with a turkey at Thanksgiving, and then an elaborately delicious chicken salad, and now I’m making recipes 2-4 times a week. 

So I made myself this recently:

and today I finally put all my recipes from my FOOD magazines into it:

I’ve been grocery shopping according to recipes for a couple weeks now and it’s been pretty successful. I’m proud of myself. And my family is sure as hell happy I’m cooking on a regular basis, because I’m making YUMMY FOOD all the time. Yay, me!

Posted on: 29th April 2012 - 0 notesReblog

Coconut

I’m not going to sit here and rephrase everything Jenna Marbles said here so just fucking read it.

Done?

Okay good. 

Today I learned that when Jenna Marbles gives you advice, fucking listen to it. Don’t half pay attention and buy coconut oil at the first place you can find it because ZEDOHEMGEESHINYOBJECT it must all be the same shit! No. Pay attention.

I bought some crap in a tiny jar, that didn’t smell like anything and was a weird off white verging on nearly yellow. It was alright, it worked well enough on my skin. But Jenna Marbles clearly said:

“ Imagine if Jesus and Lady Gaga made a MAC Viva Glam product out of pure unicorn blood and then Ghandi blessed it after it was filtered through a rainbow of infant tears on top of Mount Everest and it dropped down from the sky to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean where a narwhal incubated it to it’s maturity and sold it Johnny Appleseed where he planted it on the holy grounds of Jerusalem and it sprouted into a glitter explosion of pure amazingness. That’s what coconut oil is.” -Jenna Marbles

And what I owned, that wasn’t it.

So today I bought a new one from BlahBlah’s (Loblaws) for $11.99 and oh mighty fuck. It’s pearly and white. And creamy and soft. It’s texture is fucking amazing. And it smells like fucking coconuts. Exactly like shredded coconut you buy in the baking aisle. 

Because everything virgin is better, right?

Tonight I rubbed it all over my face and said “My face smells like an Angels asshole”. And then I put it everywhere else and exclaimed “Now, my entire body smells like an Angels vagina”. It’s what every woman wishes jizz was like.

If you know me in any way at all, you know I love the fucking shit out of coconuts. I love the smell most, I love the taste almost as much, and now…the texture of this stuff could make me cream my pants. I am one hell of a coconut cream slut, and this is by far the very best product I’ve ever used and it’s not even an actual cream. I bought it at a GROCERY STORE.

So why the hell am I freaking out and writing vulgar shit about an edible oil product? Because this shit is good for my skin. It works just as good, is cheaper, and smells better than anything the pharmacy gives me for psoriasis. I use it as a moisturizer everywhere else. And when I put it in my hair? Even my Husband noticed and commented on it looking different. That is what I call a fucking miracle in a jar.

I definitely raised some concern in my household over my coconut oil glee today, but hey. You can’t choose what makes you happy, but when you find it, rub it all over your boobs.

Yes, I’m writing that. On the internet.

Posted on: 28th April 2012 - 8 notesReblog